Update for the week Thursday, July 3, through Thursday, July 10
BREAKING NEWS: Archbishop Joseph Elected Metropolitan of All North America - His Eminence Archbishop Joseph has been elected Archbishop of New York and Metropolitan of All North America by the Holy Synod of Antioch, meeting in Balamand, Lebanon on Thursday, July 3, 2014. Axios! He is currently (Thursday morning) on his way to San Francisco where he will preside over the Parish Life Conference of the Diocese of Los Angeles and the West, but conveys to all of us his love and prayers. He said that he stands ready to lead this Archdiocese with the support and assistance from each and every one of us, and looks forward to working together for the Glory of God. A biography of Metropolitan Joseph can be found here: http://antiochian.org/MetropolitanJoseph
THIS WEEK
BIBLE STUDY – Come join us this evening, Thursday, July 3, at 7:00 pm in the church library as we continue our study of Exodus. Listen to the podcasts at http://orthodoxbiblestudy.info/exodus-part-5/ and http://orthodoxbiblestudy.info/exodus-part-6/. The Bible Study at St. Mary, sponsored by the Fellowship of St. John the Divine, meets every other Thursday, and is based on a course originally broadcast on Ancient Faith Radio, entitled Search the Scriptures. For more information contact Marianna Sayeg (mksayeg@gmail.com) or Fr. Antony (frawhj@gmail.com ). New members are always welcome.
SUMMER HOURS BEGIN THIS WEEK - Starting this Sunday, July 6, we change to Summer Hours – Orthros: 8:15 am, and Liturgy: 9:30 am.
COFFEE HOUR VOLUNTEERS NEEDED – There is no coffee hour scheduled for this Sunday, as no one volunteered to provide one. Most Sundays in July and August are still available, so please sign up to sponsor a coffee hour, individually or with friends. Some do this to celebrate a special event or anniversary, but you don’t need a reason – other than that volunteers are desperately needed. Signup sheets are on the bulletin board downstairs outside the Hall.
NEW ANNOUNCEMENTS
PRISON MINISTRY - If you would like to find out more about Prison Ministry at St. Mary’s Church, please subscribe to our mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/ocpm-concord.
Also - please donate unwanted Orthodox books, icon cards, and magazines to our prison ministry to share with inmates. Please remove any personal mailing address for security purposes and give them to Mitrophan Chin. Note: Our inmates are specifically interested in the recent June 2014 issue of The Word magazine, as they recognize Fr Antony, Bp John and couple of parishioners in one of the photos taken at St Mary's. They recollect with fondness the hierarchical Orthodox baptismal service performed a couple of years ago, for the first time in a Massachusetts correctional facility, for one of the inmates (Michael in baptism), and still remember the chanters Abraham and Thecla.
ROOM NEEDED – Lianour Barakat, a Syrian student from the Antiochian Orthodox church in Mezze, Damascus, will be a graduate student at Northeastern this fall and is looking for a room or roommates in the Boston area. Please feel free to contact Lianour at 857-389-4313 or by e-mail: lia.barakat@gmail.com .
REMINDERS
OFFICE CLOSED - The St. Mary Church Secretary will be out of the office from Friday through Friday, July 4-11, so the deadline for both the July 6 and July 13 Sunday Bulletins was noon on July 1. Any information and/or donations made to the church after the July 1 deadline will appear in the July 20 Bulletin.
SPEAKER SERIES – You are invited to the St. Nicholas Orthodox Church Speaker Series in Salem, MA, on Tuesday, July 8, and Thursday, July 10. Very Reverend Dr. Paul Tarazi, Professor of Old Testament at St. Vladimir’s, will lead you through 1 Corinthians. For more information see http://orthodoxsalem.com/ There is no charge, but seating is limited. Time: 6:30-9:00 pm. Contact: Fr. Theophan at 978-744-5869 or fr.theophan.whitfield@gmail.com.
MEMORIALS – Trisagion Prayers for Donald DiFiore (40 days) and for Fr. Gregory Phelan (25 years) will be prayed next Sunday, July 13, 2014.
VACATION CHURCH SCHOOL - St. George West Roxbury will offer Vacation Church School 2014, Monday through Thursday, July 28-31, from 9:00 am-noon each day. Join them for lessons about the major feasts of the church, crafts and fun, Preschool through 5th grade. Cost is $20 for 1 child, $30 for 2 children, $40 for 3 children. Registration must be received by July 13. Download a registration form at http://www.stgeorgeofboston.org/ministries/vcs. For more information contact John Abud at abudjohn@gmail.com.
TANGLEWOOD OUTING – Join your music-loving friends from St. Mary’s as we carpool out to Tanglewood after Liturgy on Sunday, July 20. We’ll picnic on the lawn and listen to music by Beethoven and others, with violinist Joshua Bell and new BSO conductor Andris Nelsons. For more information see http://www.bso.org/Performance/Detail/60929. (Rain date August 10: http://www.bso.org/Performance/Detail/60938.) The concert starts at 2:30; lawn tickets are $21.00 (pay at the door). Bring lawn chairs if you want them, and picnic food for yourself and to share. For more information and to let us know you're coming, especially if you'll need a ride, contact Melissa Nassiff by email (mnassiff@gmail.com) or phone (508 877-7483).
PAPPAS PATRISTICS INSTITUTE SUMMER PROGRAM - The Pappas Patristics Institute is pleased to announce its eighth annual week-long Summer Patristic Studies Program at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, MA, Sunday through Friday, July 20-25, 2014. This week-long program is a unique opportunity to study and discuss classic texts of the early Church through small group-study and brief lectures. The intended audience for the program includes theology and religious studies students at the masters and undergraduate levels, along with clergy, lay people, and undergraduates with an interest in learning more about the Church Fathers. Course offerings include "Exploring the Ancient Baptismal Liturgies" taught by our own Teva Regule, Doctoral Candidate at Boston College. For more information, or to register, please send an email to the Pappas Patristic Institute at pappaspatristic@comcast.net at your earliest convenience. You will then be sent a registration form. Complete information found here: http://www.hchc.edu/assets/files/patristics/2014_SumInst_AnnouncmentProgram_140503.pdf
CONGRATULATIONS: BIBLE BOWL WINNERS - Congratulations to our Bible Bowl team, Thomas and Anthony Marge and Alex Dalton, and their coach Violet Robbat! The St. Mary team took first place in the Bible Bowl at the Parish Life Conference in Plymouth. The team and their coach will continue on to the National Bible Bowl in July. We wish them well!
CONGRATULATIONS: SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS - Congratulations to Victoria Sayeg and Thomas Marge, recipients of 2014 New England Region FSJD Scholarships, which were presented to them at the Parish Life Conference in Plymouth. The scholarships are awarded to those high school seniors who are faithful and active Orthodox Christians and whose high school records indicate a potential for being successful in an accredited college.
Thomas Marge is also the recipient of the National Eastern Orthodox Committee on Scouting Scholarship!
CAMP COUNSELORS NEEDED - The Greek Metropolis of Boston Camp in Contoocook, NH is looking for male staff who have completed at least one year of college and have prior camp experience for the following weeks: Week 4 (July 21-27), Week 5 (July 28-August 3), Week 6 (August 4-11). To learn more, visit http://boston.goarch.org/ministries/mbc/ . If you are interested, please email mbcamp@boston.goarch.org
ICON WORKSHOP - St. Michael’s Orthodox Church, Woonsocket, RI, is offering an intense six day course Monday through Saturday, August 11-16, where the student will create an icon. Tuition $450. Class size limited to 10 students. For complete info and registration: archangelicons@verizon.net or 412-527-5359.
DORMITION CD - An audio CD of the hymns of Great Vespers, the Lamentations, and the Orthros hymns for the Feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos has been made available in anticipation of the August 15, 2014 feast day. Chanted by Dr. Sam N. Cohlmia, Protopsaltis of the Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America at St. George Cathedral in Wichita, KS, the CD is available for $15.00 by contacting Dr. Cohlmia at samcohlmia@yahoo.com
HELP PROVIDE A WARM WELCOME – Two things we do every week - all through the summer too! - to welcome visitors and newcomers, and to strengthen the bonds of fellowship with all who worship at St. Mary, are: 1.) Greet everyone who enters the church, and 2.) Provide coffee hour after Liturgy. We need more help with both of these ministries. To become a greeter please contact Buddy Mabardy at 781-729-6303 or email at Buddy@cjmabardy.com ; to provide a coffee hour please sign up on the sheet downstairs on the bulletin board or contact Barbara in the office at 617-547-1234 or secretary@stmaryorthodoxchurch.org .
CHURCH SCHOOL TEACHERS NEEDED – If you are interested in teaching Church School next year, or being an assistant or substitute teacher, please contact Barbara Shoop at Barbara@dsaarchitects.com. Being a Church School teacher can be a very rewarding and exciting opportunity. Teachers are provided with all the materials they will need.
LITURGICAL SCHEDULE FOR THIS WEEK
Saturday, July 5: Great Vespers 5:00 pm
Sunday, July 6: Summer hours begin - Orthros: 8:15 am, and Liturgy: 9:30 am
Scripture Readings for Sunday, July 6:
Epistle: St. Paul's Letter to the Romans 6:18-23
Having been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness. ... For just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for sanctification. When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But then what return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death.
Gospel: Matthew 8:5-13
... a centurion came forward to him, beseeching him and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress." And he said to him, "I will come and heal him." But the centurion answered him, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed..." When Jesus heard him, he marveled, and said to those who followed him, "Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.
LOOKING AHEAD
Saturday, July 12: Great Vespers 5:00 pm
Sunday, July 13: Summer hours - Orthros: 8:15 am, and Liturgy: 9:30 am , followed by Trisagion Prayers for Donald DiFiore (40 days) and for Fr. Gregory Phelan (25 years)
Saturday, July 19: No Vespers at St. Mary
Sunday, July 20: Summer hours - Orthros: 8:15 am, and Liturgy: 9:30 am
Friday, August 1: Dormition fast begins
Tuesday, August 5: Vespers/Divine Liturgy for the Feast of the Transfiguration 6:30 pm
Wednesday, August 6: Paraclesis for the Dormition 6:30 pm
Wednesday, August 13: Paraclesis for the Dormition 6:30 pm
Saturday, August 23: No Vespers at St. Mary
Sunday, August 31: Last day of Summer Hours
REFLECTION
If any here is a slave of sin, let him promptly prepare himself through faith for the new birth into freedom and adoption; and having put off the miserable bondage of his sins, and taken on him the most blessed bondage of the Lord, so may he be counted worthy to inherit the kingdom of heaven.
- St. Cyril of Jerusalem
Regard as free not those whose status makes them outwardly free, but those who are free in their character and conduct. For we should not call men truly free when they are wicked and dissolute, since they are slaves to worldly passions. Freedom and happiness of soul consist in genuine purity and detachment from transitory things.
- St. Antony the Great
To yield and give way to our passions is the lowest slavery, even as to rule over them is the only liberty.
- St. Justin Martyr
He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.
- St Augustine
Blessed the one who has become long-suffering and compassionate and not become the slave of the barbarian, I mean anger and evil wrath, for such a one will be exalted by the Lord.
- St. Ephrem of Syria
To serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness, whether in oneself or in one's neighbor.
- Thomas Merton, New seeds of Contemplation